Christophe Alie
CIO
Kiabi
Christophe Alié is the Chief Information Officer for KIABI, a fashion retail company based in France. Christophe’s role focuses on defining the company strategy and tactics (turnover, margin, expenses), as well as the strategic choices concerning innovation and digital transformation.
Learn more about the France CIO community here.
Give us a brief overview of the path that led to your current role.
I always had a passion for technology and organisation, finding my way to an IT organisation after attending an engineering school and completing a master’s in business.
After starting my career at Digital Equipment Corporation, I moved to a retail company, Kiabi, where I held a variety of generalist and operational roles. I worked in Paris and later moved to Lille. Here, I became the CIO of the company in 2009.
Currently, at Kiabi, I manage a team of 120 company employees in France, Hong Kong, Spain, and Italy and 200 outsourcers.
What are your guiding leadership principles?
Confidence in people, agility in the process and organisation, and implementing a communication plan between IT and business units.
With disruption being a key theme of the past few years, where do you see your role as a CIO going in the next 1-2 years?
The CIO role will involve defining the vision and the organisation of the IT department, in line with the company strategy – placing the actual governance and application architecture to enable rationalisation and simplification (Lean Mgt, IT2023 Blueprint, application portfolio, and agile methodology).
What advice would you give to someone just starting out in the role as a CIO?
Take time to build relationships with the board, leaders and teams across the organisation. Foster strong partnerships so that you can count on them.
Tell us a few fun facts about yourself.
- I like exercising – specifically, cycling and swimming.
- I enjoy travelling across countries like the UK and the US.
What is the value of joining an Evanta community?
I deeply appreciate the idea of sharing experiences and information between CIOs.
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